I solved this on my phone, so didn’t see who the setter was until I came to write the blog. I was surprised to find it was by Izetti: he has given us a relatively easy one today. I was all done and fully parsed in 11:28, which is well below my average time for all setters, let along Izetti, whose puzzles I normally find harder.
There are a couple of older words (I’m looking at you, MATER, and you, PI), so newcomers might have struggled with those. I had to stretch a bit to find a usage of ETAS that I was happy with, but overall I found this one very approachable.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Member of clan in settlement facing alarm? (8) |
| CAMPBELL – CAMP (settlement) + BELL (alarm). | |
| 5 | Threesome not entirely patriotic (4) |
| TRIO – Hidden in [not entirely] paTRIOtic | |
| 8 | Argue with tot being naughty? That could be teacher’s role (8) |
| TUTORAGE – (ARGUE TOT)*
I’m not sure I’ve seen this word before. But I spotted it was an anagram, and the crossers were helpful. |
|
| 9 | Greek characters posed facing English, turning round (4) |
| ETAS – SAT (posed, as a model does) + E for English, all reversed [turning round].
No doubt in a Greek typesetting shop, one would find trays of etas, and alphas and all the other letters too. |
|
| 11 | Home visitor whose charges are small? (10) |
| BABYSITTER – Cryptic definition. ‘Charges’ as in ‘things you are looking after’. | |
| 14 | One in hospital — one needing to be discharged, that’s clear (6) |
| PATENT – PAT |
|
| 15 | Unusual alarm when Conservative gets in (6) |
| SCARCE – SCARE (alarm) with C for Conservative inserted. | |
| 17 | Plans made by pub, uneasy feelings being picked up (10) |
| INTENTIONS – A homophone clue, indicated by ‘being picked up’. Sounds like ‘inn’ (pub) + ‘tensions’ (uneasy feelings). | |
| 20 | Club — one by river, one incomplete (4) |
| IRON – I (one), R (river), ON A golf club, of course. |
|
| 21 | Game’s HQ leading dance (8) |
| BASEBALL – BASE (HQ) in front of [leading] BALL (dance). | |
| 22 | Take a sample maybe from Hampshire river (4) |
| TEST – double definition.
I knew that there is a River Test. Couldn’t have told you which county it was in, though, so that was a bit of a biff. |
|
| 23 | Sarah suffering with the skin disorder (4,4) |
| HEAT RASH – (SARAH THE)* | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Gossips putting husband off, the beasts! (4) |
| CATS – C |
|
| 2 | Mum shortly becomes a friend (4) |
| MATE – MATE A word worth knowing, even if no-one has actually used it in the last 50 years. |
|
| 3 | Pub profiting from seeking a deal (10) |
| BARGAINING – BAR (pub) GAINING (profiting). | |
| 4 | Extra member with the last word? (3,3) |
| LEG BYE – LEG (member), BYE (the last word of many conversations).
Sorry, non-cricketers. A leg bye is a run scored in cricket when the ball has hit the batter’s body, rather than the bat. It’s a type of ‘extra’ along with wides, byes and no-balls: the team gets the run but no individual batter is credited. |
|
| 6 | List politician is circulating (8) |
| ROTATORY – ROTA (list) + TORY (politician). | |
| 7 | Noticed spread over beds (8) |
| OBSERVED – (OVER BEDS)* | |
| 10 | Unhappiness in party over any number wanting shelter (10) |
| DISCONTENT – DISCO (party), N (any number), TENT (shelter). | |
| 12 | Tiny boy in work is beginning to thrive as cheerful type (8) |
| OPTIMIST – TIM (Tiny boy) in OP (work, abbreviation of opus) + IS + first letter of [beginning to] T Tiny Tim is a character in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. |
|
| 13 | Victoria and others having drugs — nothing injected (8) |
| STATIONS – STATINS (drugs) including O [nothing injected]. | |
| 16 | Very good speed for buccaneer (6) |
| PIRATE – PI (very good) + RATE (buccaneer).
PI for ‘very good’ is an abbreviation of ‘pious’ and is described by my dictionary as ‘school slang’. Another word that appears only in crosswords. Well, once you’ve left school, I guess. Google’s AI-generated overview of the results for ‘pi very good’ starts with
No, I’m not too concerned about the coming AI apocalypse, thank you for asking. |
|
| 18 | Festivity has a prisoner turning up (4) |
| GALA – A LAG (prisoner), reversed [turning up]. | |
| 19 | Word of disapproval when learner’s penned rubbish (4) |
| BLAH – BAH (word of disapproval) including L [learner is penned].
That’s ‘bah’ as in ‘bah humbug’. Just one ‘blah’ for ‘rubbish’ is new to me, but ‘blah, blah, blah’ definitely has that meaning. |
|
Nothing too hard. I was confused by MATE since I assumed mother was MA and then wondered how TE was shortly becomes. But I bunged it in and moved on confidently. Also tentative at BLAH since I don’t think of BLAH as meaning rubbish. Wasted time trying to justify ROTATING wondering how TING was a politician. Anyway, all green in the end.
Like Paul, I assumed MA and wondered about TE (once I realized that the clue said ‘mum’ and not ‘murn’), but remembered MATER. Also like Paul, I don’t think of BLAH as meaning rubbish; I waited for the checkers before putting it in. Another slow day. 8:12.
13:36, with the top left being the main hold up. Tempted by MOTHer for MATE.
Surely the word is TUTELAGE.?
I thought Mr Ting might be the name of that Chinese Spy that Prince Andrew was hanging out with. But eventually decided that it must be ROTATORY. NHO that one either, but yes to GYRATORY, as in Hanger Lane Gyratory.
PI is on Merlin’s top 10 peeves, devices that are due for retirement.
COD OPTIMIST for Tiny Boy=TIM
Just because English has a perfectly good word in Tutelage does NOT mean we can’t have a spare: -)
Yes, tutelage is used far more often than today’s word.
I started slowly but once I got going things fell into place quite smoothly and I finished at 11.53. NHO BLAH as disapproval and not convinced that chat and gossip are synonyms. I learnt from the test match commentary that there is growing pressure to get rid of LEG BYEs because they are essentially errors by the batsman/woman and their team should not benefit. Thanks to Izetti and the Doof.
BAH is the disapproval (Bah, Humbug) with L inserted for BLAH (RUBBISH). I suppose blah, blah, blah is rubbish.
Oops, yes, of course the disapproval was directed at bah!, I managed to confuse myself there but blah alone meaning rubbish is not convincing for me.
I would gently argue that LEG BYEs are a failure of the bowler to hit the wicket (LBW might be given if the ball is on target), but also a failure of the fielders (or the captain that positioned them) to prevent the batsmen/batswomens/batters from taking a run – it’s part of the magic of cricket.
Having said that, one wonders what effect it might have on the results of many close matches over the years…
Would require Snicko to decide, further slowing down the game.
Leg byes don’t go against the bowling figures when scoring so I’d say not the fault of the bowler. Sometimes leg byes are a fluky 4!
I, too, got stuck in the NW corner. I did have tutorage, and thought that cats were probably correct, but I couldn’t justify mate, and found Campbell very elusive. The rest of the puzzle was pretty easy, although I was a bit worried if blah would turn out to be correct.
Time: 10:15
Tricky in parts and I found myself wandering all over the grid looking for easy pickings to help with the rest. I thought CAMPBELL was very good for ‘member of clan’ and the picked up INTENTIONS. Victoria and others was also misleading for STATIONS. NHO ROTATORY but the wordplay was helpful. COD to BABYSITTER.
Thanks D and setter.
In the example ‘BAH humbug!’ we have a second Christmas Carol reference to go with Tiny Tim. Not a theme as such, but evocative of the season.
I’ve often heard it said e.g. of politicians’ speeches that they are ‘so much BLAH’.
12 minutes. I lost time having written BABY MINDER at 11ac.
I just checked the minder – hyphenated only.
21.03 is probably our best Izetti. One of those days where we worked out what the clue was asking for, but spent a while fumbling around for the answer. COD to baby sitter, although tried out words to do with kindergarten to start with!
Scarce was tricky, knew we wanted a word for alarm with a c in it but having got the c at the beginning failed to spot there might be a second one, d’oh.
Thanks Izetti, and Doofers for the blog, and complete parsing of intentions that we rather glossed over on the way past.
I knew I was going to have trouble with ROTATORY. The first time I came back to it I tried to force ‘register’ in there. Ended up all green in 12.16.
Unlike some others, I got off to a flier in the NW and I found most of this fairly straightforward until getting inexplicably held up by my last 3 – BASEBALL, STATION (ahhh, that type of Victoria) and LOI INTENTIONS.
All of which brought me to a completion time of 7.53 which is a smidge under average with my COD going to BABYSITTERS.
Thanks to Doofers
My memory palace has a little wing for Victoria – station, sponge, waterfall and the more obvious Queen / Empress
I got stuck thinking about sponges, plants and queens
Plants 😲 Sounds like the wing may need an extension …
New Driver – and there’s a horse drawn vehicle as well.
I’m reminded of an elderly joke:
Tell me four things named after Queen Victoria …
Three plums and a railway station!
And a song by the Kinks!
And Victoria Starmer.
6:45
Mostly OK though did raise an eyebrow at TUTORAGE – have to assume that the word does exist, though TUTELAGE might be more commonly used? My LOI was CAMPBELL which wouldn’t have been the first thing I thought of when asked for a word meaning a ‘member of clan’ – the question mark is perhaps in the wrong place in the clue?
Thanks Doofenschmirtz and Izetti
Well, I seem to be in a minority of one here, as I found this very hard. I did finish, in 18 minutes, but slow going. I didn’t parse MATE and needed a second look to convince myself that ROTATORY and TUTORAGE are actual words (my spellchecker has similar doubts). Some of the other definitions escaped me for a long time too – “Victoria and others” for stations being one.
I shall accept the majority view that this was a typically brilliant Izetti and put it down to the mysterious wavelength, but I found some of the surfaces a bit forced instead of the Don’s usual very smooth, and some of the wordplay and answers convoluted and obscure. Not one I enjoyed as much as some.
Many thanks Doofers for the blog
Cedric
Make that two.
And three.
Not sure chats = gossips?
And 4
Me five
DNF for me today
Unusually for an Izetti this was a bit of a biff fest with some clues left unparsed such as INTENTIONS and MATE (forgot about Mater) and nho PI for very good.
All green however in 33 minutes.
Clan Campbell is very familiar from Scottish history where they are usually portrayed rather unfairly as the baddies, especially after the massacre of Glencoe.
LOI and COD to BABYSITTER – another biff.
16:16 for the solve! All but the SE done in about eleven mins where I could see -RASH but not what to anagram Sarah with. BLAH was LOI.
Felt it was a good puzzle for biffing as I generally found it harder to construct answers from the clueing (e.g. DISCONTENT=unhappiness is more obvious than party=disco and shelter=tent). That said, I did need to use the clueing to get the latter half of ROTATORY. MATE I had to parse postsolve for same reasons as others.
I enjoyed the simplicity of IRON
Agree a biff fest with things like PI.
Nevertheless I found enough crossers were always available so was able to get there and feel pleased to complete accurately in about 35 mins
Well done 👍
As per vinyl. A pleasingly precise 09:00 for 1.1K and a Decent Day. COD to OPTIMIST.
Many thanks Doofers and Don.
5:50. I’m another who didn’t know TUTORAGE but it was easy enough to derive. LOI DISCONENT. I liked the gentle CD BABYSITTER. Thank-you Izetti and Doofers.
I found this tough and slow, with a couple of NHOs (any cricket reference will have me floundering), and a DNF in the end. I usually get through Izetti’s puzzles, though I find his clues clunky and disjointed. I don’t see the clever, smooth surfaces that other solvers seem to. Maybe I will one day.
Pi
Just not on his wavelength so gave up for the first time in months. It all seems fair enough really, so no real complaints. Ironically one I did get quickly used one of my pet hates – pi meaning very good. It’s a common term but only in these crosswords!
I thought P1 could also derive from Motor Racing where P1 stands for Position 1 – first place, very good!
Maybe – it’s a new one on me if it is. A bit thin too don’t you think?
No problem with MATE, but TUTORAGE, ROTATORY and BLAH took time to get and justify. 24.15 to finish – par for the course.
An enjoyable puzzle today. Tried to make ROTATING fit for 6D and found 2 politicians called Ting, one US and the other Filipino, but decided that was too obscure even for Izetti. COD BABYSITTER. Thanks Doofers
8:22
A couple of slippery answers TUTORAGE and ROTATORY seemed designed to trip up the biffers – fair enough I thought!
COD BABYSITTER made me chuckle.
Hadn’t understood that PI was short for pious but confdently parsed it as P1 (priority 1) and moved on in oblivious error!
I didn’t really love the use of ‘chat’ as a synonym for ‘gossip’ – the latter is a much more specific term than the former and I always find it slightly unsatisfying when a specific word is used to clue a generic one without a “say” or other qualifier.
About 20 mins for the straightforward ones, but then completly breezeblocked with six left: Rotatory, Scarce, Babysitter, Discontent, Stations and Intentions. Needed a second sitting to tease those out with a crowbar, so easily north of 30mins in total.
I join Cedric in finding some of this a bit forced for a puzzle set by Don. Invariant
Despite a slight MER at TUTORAGE, I was untroubled by this comparatively gentle offering from The Don, and had only 5 clues to mop up after the first pass.
FOI CAMPBELL
LOI ROTATORY
COD BABYSITTER
TIME 3:59
DNF.
Got stuck in North East.
Nho LEG BYE. A few cricketing terms I can handle, but this seemed very obscure.
Unlike TUTORAGE (another nho) which I got from the anagram, this one I had no chance of getting. Sadly, there were other clues to defeat me. Threw in towel at 30′.
Enjoyed CAMPBELL. My COD
Hoping tomorrow’s QC is more my wavelength.
Thanks for blog
I know nothing about cricket other than what I’ve learned from this blog. Hang around for a year or so and LEG BYE will be firmly implanted in your crosswordese lexicon.
I didn’t find this particularly easy finishing in 10.58. I started at a reasonable pace, but with less than half completed I came to a grinding halt, and it must have been over a minute before I put another answer in. I think it was BARGAINING that got me going again, and once a few more checkers were in place I was able to work my way round the grid to completion. BLAH ended up being my LOI, and in the end I was relatively pleased to finish only a minute or so outside target.
34:08 no errors, back to the SCC after yesterday’s 8:33. I too found this tough especially the last two BABYSITTER and (LOI) ROTATORY which I will admit shouldn’t have held out as long as they did. FOI – TRIO, COD – IRON which I liked even though it wasn’t particularly difficult. Thanks Izetti and Doofers.
Phew – what a struggle. Feared for ages this was going to be a complete failure, right back to the drawing board, but gradually got on to the wavelength and completed it. LOI BLAH. A few CNPs, so thank you, Doofers. Tensions “picked up” was difficult; mater was common in the 1930s but no longer in the 1960s, so make that 80-90 years!
Six on first pass, at least four of those were biffs. Now for the second pass….
20:57
Well I didn’t find it that friendly, though on reflection nothing too obscure. ETAS is a bit of a contrived word but it was the SE which held out longest. It’s always harder to spot words when the checkers are vowels so struggled with BASEBALL then LOI BLAH. At least I remembered PI from previous puzzles.
I don’t see ETAs as a contrived word – it’s just pluralisation of a letter of the Greek alphabet.
In English, we might say Cockneys drop their AITCHs.
Relax Cedric, I too found this hard.
It took me 17 minutes of full concentration . LOI BABYSITTER- couldn’t see it for ages even with checkers and spotting that kids were involved.
I thought CAMPBELL was hard, and I have Scottish ancestry. Settlement has many meanings.
The bottom half went in fairly quickly but the top was tough. I entered MATE in despair after quite a bit of thought as I could not see the parsing- thanks for that.
David
Tutorage is in all the usual sources, not invented by the setter.
9.46, but with an intermission to collect a parcel from my wonderful Postie.
I found this quite tricky, mainly because I biffed TUTELAGE at 8a, which stymied me for BARGAINING and CAMPBELL. After completing the SW I finally saw —GAINING and revisited 8a changingd the L to an R and checking the anagrist. TUTORAGE, not a word I’d come across before. 9:07. Thanks Izetti and Doofers.
21 minutes to completion but with quite a number remaining in parsed (MATE, DISCONTENT and INTENTIONS to name a few). I found the top half relatively easy but the bottom half, especially the SW, much harder. I was very slow to see the straightforward OPTIMIST and the rather devious STATIONS.
FOI – 5ac TRIO
LOI – 17ac INTENTIONS
COD – 11ac BABYSITTER
Thanks to Izetti and Doofers
My solving picked up after a slow start, but rather ground to a halt again with 6-8 clues to go. A barren spell of about 5-7 minutes at that point was eventually broken (by INTENTIONS, I think) and it was mostly plain sailing then through to the finish.
HEAT RASH, BLAH and PIRATE were my last few in. Time = probably in the mid-30s.
Thanks to Izetti and Doofers.
07:51
Got held up by cats, campbell, and LOI blah.
COD babysitter.
17:43. ROTATORY, TUTORAGE, and INTENTIONS caused me the most trouble.
14.56 Slow throughout finishing with BLAH and BABYSITTER. Thanks Doofers and Izetti.
I started with TRIO and finished with CAMPBELL in 7:35. BLAH took a while to come to mind and unusually for Izetti I found the cluing for ETAS rather clunky. I did however like the cluing for OPTIMIST.
Here’s my Christmas wish: could all setters please stop using the “very good” = ‘PI’ convention and confine it to the bin of linguistic obsolescence where it belongs. I’m nearly 70 and I doubt that it has been used outside of a crossword clue by anyone in my lifetime.
It’s not clever clueing, it’s lazy and hackneyed and, although knowing it (which I do) might make some people feel good about themselves, it can’t be any fun at all for people coming new to the crossword.
Well past its use-by date.
Just to be devil’s advocate here! I’m a tad older than you and still (very occasionally) describe a sanctimonious person as a bit pi! But I’d say that in this context, the person so described is not very good, or saintly etc, but holier-than-thou, which is quite a different matter 😅
It is undoubtedly old-fashioned, but so are many other phrases that pop up here – rhino, lid, mater, just for starters!
17:05
Very slow today. Solving late after a hospital appointment that ended with a two hour wait in outpatient pharmacy.
I agree that PI=very good should be banned from crosswords, along with the sexual meaning of IT and several other pieces of slang that no living person has ever used.
Slow to see TUTORAGE. Another word I have never seen used for real.
Thanks Doofers and Izetti
No more “sex” = ‘IT’ would be Christmas wish number 2 – and, while we’re at it, it’s time the nudge-nudge, wink-wink “supporter” = ‘BRA’ was burned as well.
Number 3 would be using the indefinite article ‘a’ somewhere in the clue to give ‘PER’ in the answer. Hardly anyone ever spots it, even when they are scratching their head over parsing their partially biffed answer.
Joking aside, I do think some of these time-honoured (much more polite than “tedious”) conventions should be dropped.
I see what you did there 😎
I do agree about the nudge-nudge clues.
I don’t agree, actually. Cryptic crosswords are just a code. They aren’t intended to reflect modern speech. True no-one ever says “pi” for “very good” – but then no-one says “flower” (or indeed “runner” or “banker”) for “river”. No-one says “ens” for “being”, or “booked” to indicate a character in a book, or “detailed” for “taking the last letter off” and so on and so forth. This isn’t natural speech and it’s not supposed to be. It is a set of hieroglyphs.
You just have to learn the code and apply it. The setters need as large a code available to them as possible to help them clue, and I can’t see any value in trying to cut their options down.
I agree. We are beginning to see more up-to-date vocab and idioms, which also seem to cause problems for some of us. It’s just a question of getting used to the conventions – older and newer.
Absolutely Penny – like “pants” as an anagram indicator!
I’ve got no issue with the setters writing new code, but I don’t want to shrink their “vocabulary” and think it’s unfair to complain about established usages. You just have to learn it!
Well said, Tom.
Trouble at the end. Biffed Gash for 19d at first, so stuck on trying to think of a dance instead of a game for 21a. After an age the penny dropped – argh BASEBALL. So biffed LOI BLAH.
Otherwise plodded through at a slow pace. Liked CAMPBELL, IRON, LEG BYE, CATS.
Very slow on STATIONS too. Starmers didn’t fit!
I didn’t mind PI as at least it was easy. FOI OPTIMIST.
Thanks, Doofers.
Found this one difficult but finished in 34 mins. LOI Rotatory had the clue the wrong way round, looking for a list like Register.
Thanks all.
14:00 so Izetti being very indulgent indeed. Again I note the absence of the churchiness I’ve come to expect from this setter, PI being the only thing I noticed (and I’d forgotten about pi=pious so looked it up after). Amazingly, LEG BYE went straight in. Clearly I’ve been paying attention here 🙂 MATER eluded me to the end; seems to me I associate it with Sparkler in the television adaptation of Little Dorritt. DISCONTENT my favorite today (this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco…)
Thanks Izetti and Doof!
Isn’r Sarah a biblical name too?
Good point, but aren’t most of our common first names either biblical names or saints’ names?
True. Let’s not forget (Tiny) Timothy has a whole book of the Bible to himself !!
Tiny St. Timothy!!!
Maybe not our first name, but my middle name is biblical!
Leviticus? 😄
ND: Now that would be unusual! Not Eli either 😅 Something much more prosaic, and typical of my generation! But it turns out it means lily, so that’s rather nice.
Very impressed by your cricketing expertise!
😎🤣
I always enjoy an Izetti because the answer is always there staring at you, but today I struggled with ETAS and BLAH. I wondered whether he was forcing a message or pattern somehow, but it seems not. Still lots to enjoy. Struggled in my Costa but made up for it when I got home.
FOI 5 Trio
LOI 21a Baseball
COD 11a Babysitter
27 minutes.
Easy? I give up.
One of those days. We all have them. Well, all of us ordinary mortals anyway.
Today’s quickie took twice as long as yesterday’s at just over 15 minutes, and as for the biggie – well, there was no comparison 😅
As a descendant of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, I shan’t be nominating 1a for anything!
FOI Trio LOI Blah COD Observed
Thanks Izetti and Doofers
7.17
Didn’t hesitate to follow the instructions and insert TUTORAGE but the more one looks at it, the stranger it becomes. But leaving that aside I thought this was Izetti on top form with some quality clues, HEAT RASH probably my favourite but BABYSITTERS not far behind. Nice to have a cryptic that really does work.
Two hours on the big puzzle and I got just over half. Wish I hadn’t bothered. Every clue was a struggle and I feel mentally drained.
16 mins…
As noted above, nothing too difficult from Izetti. Thought the answer for 9ac “Etas” was a little odd because it was in the plural, but the rest went in steadily.
FOI – 5ac “Trio”
LOI – 17ac “Intentions”
COD – 12dn “Optimist”
Thanks as usual!